Some patients, such as infants, small children, and the elderly, characteristically resist attempts at diagnosis or treatment by physicians or by other medical personnel. Often, the combined efforts of several persons are required to restrain these patients for various medical procedures such as injections of drugs, drawing blood samples, performance of surgery requiring no or only local anesthesia, setting fractures, taking x-rays, and the like.
Medical restraint devices are generally known for restraining patients for ambulatory movement, for patient protection, for surgical procedures, and these various other medical procedures. These restraint devices for ambulatory movement and for surgical procedures typically have a support member and some type of means for securing the patient to the support member. Examples of these restraint devices may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,854,305 by Bremer entitled "Radiolucent Transport And Diagnostic Procedure Board"; U.S. Pat. No. 4,757,811 by Clark entitled "Infant Restraining Device"; U.S. Pat. No. 4,108,168 by Craig entitled "Hip Splint Device"; U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,869 by Ruiz entitled "Patient Restraint For X-Ray Studies Of Infants"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,523 by Darby, Jr. entitled "Infant Restraining Board"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,526,222 by Dreibelbis entitled "Pediatric Restraining Apparatus"; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,215,334 by Tayman entitled "Infant Immobilizer, Particularly For Radiological Exposure." These prior restraint devices, however, constrain the patient in a rigid extended manner, block easy access to the torso area of the patient, and fail to secure the patient in an appropriate position for many surgical procedures such as circumcision of an infant.
Thus, there is a need for a medical restraint device which comfortably and flexibly secures the patient in an appropriate position for surgical procedures or the like.